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Today’s experiment.
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Pardon me, Daniel, but that’s PRECISELY what it was. A success. I never said it was a superior success to that which could be achieved with any other NLE, only that at the very least, I and others here are finding FCP-X not to be a “lesser” editing tool for general purpose use.
With what’s been posted here pretty relentlessly, some readers wouldn’t be blamed for having developed the VERY FALSE impression that it’s an incompetent, buggy, POS.
Not everyone will appreciate or perhaps ever need it’s signature ease of search, sort and recall underpinnings. But for those who might, knowing its as solid a basic cutting tool as anything else out there – and that it even has some intriguing basic tools for titling, motion graphics integration, audio, color correction and encoding/delivery are a part of the knowledge puzzle.
No, it won’t be ideal for everyone. But as a tool that’s priced more aggressively then it’s competition, and that represents a significant departure from what has come before it, those who might want to give it a whirl deserve a better overview of it from actual working users than “but software x already does that too.”
In point of fact, where’s the problem of knowing that X might share a few more capabilities with the other “best in class” packages in this version than in the old one?
Is that anything but helpful?
The attitudes of some here just really confuse me. It’s like Apple offended you personally with this product and you won’t be satisfied until you get some revenge by trashing it to all who will listen.
It’s a 300 buck software package for heavens sake. Not the harbingel of the apocalypse.
Use it or don’t.
You want to explain how NLE B, or C allows even greater efficiency than X on a laptop, THAT would be interesting to me and others as well, I’m pretty sure. What configs are you running to do your field cuts? How do you do encodes, exports and deliver client dubs outside the Apple ecosystem.
Enquiring minds want to know.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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I don’t really have a dog in the Legacy vs X brouhaha. I used FCP at a TV station I once worked at, and now use Premiere Pro. My interest in the postings since X’s release have more to do with how X will fundamentally change the video business. Not high end Hollywood stuff, but the bread and butter corporate and local work done in flyover country. And I think Bill Davis’ post about his quick turnaround is a harbinger of what is going to happen to this segment of the industry.
Do you remember when there were print shops galore everywhere? Along came desktop publishing, which got easier and cheaper as the years passed. Who needed a print shop to design, lay out, and print low end flyers, business cards, or the like, when a secretary with MS Publisher or some other low cost software could do it?
So, a client sees you in his boardroom cut something together quickly and asks what software you’re using. It won’t take clients long to realize that for $300 they can have the same software. And after all, the software does all the work, right? The IT guy now becomes the video guy. Or that twenty-something kid just hired in accounting can do it. He’s posted a lot of stuff to YouTube, so he knows what he is doing.
And you can’t beat the cost. Per hour charges in different locales vary of course, but how quickly will a company get back their money on an investment in $300 software? Quickly. There are, of course, inexpensive NLEs, many in the Windows world. But what the wide world perceives as professionals do not use them for paying work. And those other NLEs don’t have the Apple cachet.
So, to pretend I’m Alvin Toffler, I see X as the first step in depleting the ranks of those who make a living making video. Cameras keep getting cheaper and cheaper and now the NLE has caught up with them. Desktop publishing put a lot of print shops out of business. Desktop video—CHEAP desktop video—will do the same thing to our business.
As Dennis Miller says, of course, I could be wrong.
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[Bill Davis] ” digitized the tape, slapped a pre-built short open and close on it. And transcoded and uploaded the result to the relevant website – and returned the DVCAM master to them – all in about 40 minutes.”
And you can’t do this with any other NLE in the same amount of time? THAT impressed the client? Wow…
I can do that in Avid…which I have on my laptop. That captures tape from firewire. Includes Sorenson Squeeze for encoding, or directly from Avid
I can do that in FCP 7…which I have on my laptop, which also captures tape from firewire. Includes Compressor..
I can do that in Premiere Pro…which I have on my laptop…blah blah blah. Includes Adobe Encoder…
And in the same amount of time. I mean…you captured, put on a pre built element, and exported a QT file. If that’s all you needed to do, ANY NLE would work. Vegas, iMovie, Edius, Speed Razor, Windows Media Maker.
I think you need a better example if you are trying to impress fellow editors, and not clients who don’t have a clue about video.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane you miss the point entirely. It’s not about FCPX being better. It’s simply a capable choice. Nice that you’ve put FCPX within the same capabilities as the other NLEs. FCPX shows no disadvantage for this kind of job.
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[Craig Seeman] “Shane you miss the point entirely. It’s not about FCPX being better. It’s simply a capable choice. Nice that you’ve put FCPX within the same capabilities as the other NLEs. FCPX shows no disadvantage for this kind of job.”
Bill could have done this same job 11 years ago on a PowerBook G3 with FCP 1. That’s setting the bar for success pretty low after more than a decade of advances in computing and video technologies.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Many people seem to believe FCPX isn’t as capable though. It may not be superior but it works in certain professional environments meeting certain professional needs.
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[Shane Ross] “If that’s all you needed to do, ANY NLE would work. Vegas, iMovie, Edius, Speed Razor, Windows Media Maker. “
Speed Razor! There’s something you don’t hear much about anymore. I spent something like three-four years on that, a decade ago. Amazing back then. Had to help somebody out with it about three years back, and I was freaked by how kludgy and cumbersome it was to use. Of course it was on some ancient dual pentium, but wow–times had changed. That’s what makes me laugh about the “FCP X is in its infancy just like FCP was a decade ago, so give it time to grow and it will be just as multifaceted as FCP is now, but with God-like power.” Its like somehow a decade of NLE development doesn’t matter, and because it is new its okay for it to not include features that even Speed Razor had.
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[Craig Seeman] “Many people seem to believe FCPX isn’t as capable though. It may not be superior but it works in certain professional environments meeting certain professional needs.
“Craig, I really don’t know of anyone who is making the claim that FCP X can’t preform the most basic editorial functions (other than those that we all agree it specifically can’t, like broadcast monitoring and output to tape).
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Speed Razor…
Coupled with a Targa it rendered video to sequential TGAs, BMPs, etc.
Then you could just take those directly to After Effects on another box.
Or to any other effect oriented software. -
[Craig Seeman] “Shane you miss the point entirely. It’s not about FCPX being better. It’s simply a capable choice. “
No, I don’t. Who didn’t think that FCX couldn’t do somthing this simple? Who? Raise your hand. Who didn’t think FCX couldn’t capture a DV tape…add a clip to that…and export for the web? I think we all thought that’s EXACTLY what it could do. As you see, we all agree on that point.
Now, throw it at higher end professional workflows. THEN come and brag. Like Mark Morache here showing us what he did for a Seattle news magazine. That was a bragging point. The guy saying that it works great for sports video, major league sports. THAT’S a bragging point.
Throw this on a multicamera sitcom…or reality show where you have tons of elements to deal with. A documentary with 8 different footage/format types. Surf video for BluRay distribution. THEN come and brag.
[Craig Seeman] “FCPX shows no disadvantage for this kind of job.”
Nor would iMovie, Windows Movie Maker…
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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